Healing Arts Report

Practices for an Evolving Life

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They Don't Tell You How

“You need to love yourself more.” “You shouldn’t feel that way.” “Always put other people first. Don’t be selfish.” The one thing that is missing from all this good advice is telling you HOW to do it. We introduce you to practical tools using your own character traits to support you in creating practical answers to those questions. Read more here.

Books

Two memoirs tell about times of extreme personal growth in the author’s life. Sunny Side Up is a window into the early 70s when certain young adults were searching for a way to head off society’s path bent on materialism. The Transparent Feather tells of a dying author passing the torch of writing to her new friend cum student.

Blog

Support Group The Old Fashioned Way – Part I

I was relieved to find the store easily because I had my pigeon Rusty with me. We were in one of the charming old neighborhoods of Chicago. Most of the commercial buildings were from the 1920s—many of them only one story high and sometimes faced with cream colored sculptural ceramic tiles. Storefront buildings that were two or three stories high had people living in apartments above them.

I pushed open the door to find an unexpectedly tiny shop—about 8’ x 12.’ Rows of birdcages with canaries, parakeets, and finches filled the shelves I faced.

Just as I was about to put down the cage with my young pigeon in it, Lou, the owner of the shop, opened an inner door to my right. He was the man who suggested I bring Rusty to meet him and a group of pigeon fanciers who showed up at his store every morning just to chew the fat.

It was the first time I’d met Lou in person. He was a short dark man with a gruff voice, a Chicago Italian dialect, and friendly demeanor. “Come back here. This is where everyone hangs out.”

He led me back to a huge space that filled the entire city lot all the way back to the alley, probably about 80 feet or more. In the further part of the room were truckloads of 50 lb. bags of pigeon feed stacked five feet high. The ceiling was about fifteen feet and strung with rows of fluorescent lights. Against the right hand wall were a dozen mismatched chairs, each one topped with a 70 to 80-year-old guy wearing a plaid shirt—like a club uniform.

“These are the pigeon racing enthusiasts I told you about,” said Lou. He wanted me to see the social club he’d created and enjoyed throughout his adult life. He seemed to understand what a centering role this casual pursuit provided in their lives.

Maybe I need to back up here and tell you how I came to know Lou.

One morning as I raced out of the house to go to college, there on the porch was the most pathetic forlorn and, frankly, ugly baby bird I’d ever seen. It didn’t appear to be damaged but one eye had an irregularly shaped orange iris. The bird had no feathers, just scrawny yellow threads with its mottled skin showing through. There were also what looked like little sticks poking out of it’s flesh, which I understood were emerging feathers, unopened, still in their casings.

I had to save the creature, of course, but I was late, so I didn’t think I could spend any time other than putting it in a large carton with a bowl of water and the intention of doing something more when I returned home after classes. (to be continued in Part II)

Practice: Accept an invitation to meet people you ordinarily wouldn’t interact with. Give yourself a reasonable amount of time but also make plans for a beginning and end of the experience.

Contact. If you’re not sure how to set boundaries for an experience you’ve been invited to, contact me for a free 20-minute consultation. We’ll brain storm about possibilities that will work for you.